Blog Category: DARPA

For the past four years, scientists at Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been conducting detailed
performance evaluations of speech translation systems for the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Previous systems used microphones and portable
computers. In the most recent tests, the NIST team evaluated three two-way,
real-time, voice-translation devices designed to improve communications between
the U.S. military and non-English speakers in foreign countries.

Traditionally, the military has relied on human translators for communicating
with non-English speakers in foreign countries, but the job is dangerous and
skilled translators often are in short supply. According to NIST’s Brian Weiss, the DARPA project,
called TRANSTAC (spoken language communication and TRANSlation system for
TACtical use), aims to provide a technology-based solution. Currently, the focus
is on Pashto, a native Afghani tongue, but NIST has also assessed machine
translation systems for Dari—also spoken in Afghanistan—and Iraqi Arabic.

All new TRANSTAC systems all work much the same way, says project manager Craig
Schlenoff. An English speaker talks into the phone. Automatic speech recognition
distinguishes what is said and generates a text file that software translates to
the target language. Text-to-speech technology converts the resulting text file
into an oral response in the foreign language. This process is reversed for the
foreign language speaker. Read more | video